Archives for March 2011

Link up your blog, your twitter, etsy, your Nana’s myspace – whatever you want! You can link anything you want as long as it is SFW (ie: no porn or icky stuff!). The only rule is to tag your link appropriately:

Blog: Blog name

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Sidenote: have y’all seen pinterest.com yet? if you sign up and get wait-listed, give me a shout and I can probably invite you (mommabrown08@gmail.com). This site is amazing and addictive!

So many great things come by the dozen. Except for cupcakes, I don’t think many are more exciting than a dozen pounds lost. Twelve pounds in two weeks. If you had asked me a month ago if I thought I could lose twelve pounds in two weeks, I would have laughed in your face whilst licking cheese curl dust off my pudgy fingers. I’ve been losing the same five pounds for the last two years. There’s no way in hell I thought I could be 12% of the way toward my goal of losing one hundred pounds. And while 12% in a restaurant would mean I am a sub-par waitress (this is me as a waitress); in the world of weight loss, it means I’m doing pretty damn good!

The weight tracking tool is just one of the many handy tools you’ll find at mymedifast.com

In the last two and a half years of my half assed attempts at losing weight, I’ve never lost more than 2-3 pounds in a week. And those 2-3 pounds were always painful. A week filled with mood swings, withdrawal and binges from feeling deprived. These past two weeks? Easy. Easy. (gassy.) Easy. I had a little upset the first weekend but I learned some great lessons – the biggest being that I am stronger than the temptation.

Seriously people, I am still waging an colossal war here and will be for a while. But I have won a few battles in these two weeks and I will wear my new stripes with pride! I fought off the snackies, I obliterated the thoughts of the cupcakes in the office (two times!) and a cake, I made it through lunch at the mall food court and a birthday dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. I gave carbs the beat down of a lifetime and I don’t even think about those evil cheese curls my husband keeps in the cabinet. I’ve even thumbed my nose at diet coke and have cut my consumption of non-water drinks in half.

I will confess that I have had a few nibbles of things that my husband was eating. But I am not even sweating that, they were truly just a nibble, just a taste. Could those nibbles affect my overall results? Sure they can. But I don’t feel it’s realistic to expect someone to last on a weight loss journey if they can’t take a pit stop along the way. I’m not talking a fork in the road and remapping the course, just a little pause to stop and smell the flowers. And honestly I think that’s what this is all about. I was able to have a single bite, savor it and walk away feeling satisfied. I didn’t ‘cheat’ and become wracked with guilt over a binge session.

Even though I think that a nibble here and there are acceptable, I am fully aware how it can spiral into two, three bites and then a whole serving of something and then some. So I nibble with caution and with the notion that this will not be the last cupcake, hot dog or whatever god awful thing my husband is eating, that I will come across in my life. So instead, I go do something else while he chows down. I am proud to say that I successfully defeated the pull of the Amish pastry shop at our local farmer’s market this weekend.

Food porn! drooooooooooool

One of the changes I am enjoying most is one that I never expected. My husband is such a supportive man. Its the rare occasion that he wont support me in something. So rare, I can’t even think of a single instance in which he hasn’t backed a decision I’ve made. But I was worried about being on this plan. Worried how it would affect our weekend outings and the family dynamic. A lot of families with weight issues use food and meals as a bonding tool. Our family has been no different. Thanks to the 5 & 1 plan, I can still partake in family dinners by saving my Lean & Green meal for dinner. But my husband is making some changes of his own. We are eating out less on the weekends. Instead, we are packing foods or eating at home. He says he feels good about challenging himself to find meals at home and the money we save as a result. Since Izzy is on a PB&J kick, she doesn’t even notice that we have stopped eating out.

So far this experience has been nothing but positive. I was telling my Medifast appointed dietitian that this is the easiest program I’ve ever participated in. On other programs I was obsessed with points and calories to the point that I would become so overwhelmed that I would just give up. On Medifast, I only have to worry about one meal.

What helps most is that I genuinely enjoy the Medifast foods. I have quickly acquired a taste for all the shakes, bars and soups and amazingly, the scrambled eggs. Pre-Medifast, you could not have paid me to eat eggs but I actually like them a lot! I even crave some of the items the way I used to crave my favorite junk foods. If you are even slightly on the fence about trying Medifast, take the leap. I really thought this program would be so incredibly hard and its not at all. I am a junk food junkie and I really don’t miss that crap much at all.

Week one: -7lbs

Week two: -5lbs

*FTC Disclosure: Medifast provides their products for my personal use for free. I am not paid or compensated in any other way for mentioning their products. All thoughts written here are mine. I love complaining so I would tell you if I didn’t like something in the program.

I love art. Art is awesome. Art can also be stupid expensive. That’s why I am loving this site 20×200. They offer a variety of sizes for each piece that is offered. The smallest size (usually around 10×8) is just $20. Prices go up from there. Their formula is pretty simple: (limited editions x low prices) + the internet = art for everyone.

My current favorites are these baby animal prints. How cute would these be in a nursery?

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I really like to repurpose things or build onto an existing item so that it has a different function from its original purpose. This idea for ribbon storage is fab:

I already use empty baby wipe tubs and thread the ribbon through the dispenser but I think I am going to switch to this.

This is another great idea:

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Shirataki Noodles!

I love, love, love spaghetti. I could eat it almost every night. Now that I am on Medifast, that’s a no-go. But with Shirataki tofu noodles, spaghetti is back on the menu! Each 4 ounce serving is only 20 calories! Lo-carb, no fat, taste just as good as real pasta. SOLD! Even if you aren’t dieting, I would highly suggest you try these noodles.

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Momiji Dolls

CUUUUUUUTE!

Random back pain and my shitty Ikea mattress….which is probably the cause for the back pain. I haven’t been able to get fully upright since Monday afternoon. Thank god I found two left over percocets from some dental work I had last Spring. Momma Brown is sleeping good tonight!

My husband is on vacation this week (I am not, unfortunately). He’s such a good daddy. When most dads would probably continue the daycare routine, my husband keeps our daughter home with him every day. They’ve been taking little day trips. Monday they did all the grocery shopping, yesterday was the bookstore and the Brandywine Zoo. Izzy is soooooo in love with her daddy right now. She really loves having him all to herself.

Many of the animals were having a sleepy day.

Not this little guy though.

And this guy is just looking for trouble.

Let’s take a closer look at what our llama friend is doing:

What a lewd llama!!!!

I’m sad I am missing out on all the fun. But I am so glad C is getting this time with Izzy. He works a lot of Saturdays and often misses out on the things Izzy and I do on the weekends. She may not remember this when she gets older but I know this time will be in his fondest memories.

Link up your blog, your twitter, etsy, your Nana’s myspace – whatever you want! You can link anything you want as long as it is SFW (ie: no porn or icky stuff!). The only rule is to tag your link appropriately:

I was a chubby kid. In the fifth grade I was the tallest and heaviest of all my classmates. I can’t remember what the reason was but I remember being weighed at school. One hundred and fourty pounds. In the fifth grade. Sometimes I shopped in the Misses section but most times in the Womens section. There was no plus size Juniors back then. My mom made a lot of my clothes.

In the seventh grade, my mother and I joined Jenny Craig and I had tipped the scales at 220lbs.

Along the way I tried various weight loss solutions. I’ve tried a variety of programs. I’ve even tried diet drugs like Phentermine and Xenical (now on the market as Ally). Eventually I stopped weighing myself. But I do know that by the time I was 22, I was wearing a size 24 jeans. One day in 2000, I was 23 years old and the size 24’s no longer fit. I was just shy of 300lbs. I decided that gastric bypass was the only option I had left.

I jumped through all the hoops. All the doctor appointments, all the counseling, I set a date, I was ready. Then my insurance company decided at the last minute that they would not cover my surgery. I was lost. Where do I go from here? Fat had consumed so much of my life. It was all I thought about from the moment I woke up until the moment I went to sleep. Why does the size of my body matter so much? What is so wrong with my shape? I’m smart, talented, loved and at the end of the day the only thing that really mattered to me was how fat I was. That’s messed up. I needed a new outlook.

There were a couple of key things happening at this point in my life. My job was in flux and my grandmother was dying. A lot was about to change very quickly. I decided to roll a new outlook and better health into those changes. By the time I was 26 I had gotten a new job (and another and another after that), said goodbye to my beloved mommom, moved out of state, got engaged and even after some setbacks, finally I was down to 193 pounds. I was still ‘fat’ but I was healthy. I felt really good!

Literally just climbed a mountain!

Then I had a kid.

Oh yeah. Totally going with that excuse 😉

It’s been a long road of finding acceptance with my body type. I can accept that my body type is what it is and I am not going to fight it. As cliche as it may sound, I like my curves, I like being a little soft. However, what I can no longer accept is my lack of health. For me, losing weight is not about vanity, it’s about survival. I want to avoid heart disease, osteoarthritis, high blood pressure and cholesterol, type 2 diabetes and the myriad of other health issues that come with being obese. While I am very thankful that my weight has yet to create any health problems, I know I cannot continue to avoid these issues with the amount of weight I am carrying around.

An issue that is equally important to me is demonstrating healthy food and exercise habits to my daughter. I feel that I cannot do this without losing weight. I don’t look healthy. I don’t eat healthy portions. I don’t eat healthy foods. And unless you count moving from the couch to the kitchen as exercise, I’m not doing that consistently either. It’s a story for another time but I don’t want to put my food issues on Izzy and future baby the way my parents did to me (Sorry mom and dad, its true. I still love you anyway. ). I have many goals as a mother but healthy food and exercise habits are definitely in the top five and so far I am failing miserably at it.

I didn’t really have any great epiphany this time around. I had feigned attempts at losing the ‘baby weight’ over the past two and a half years but nothing really stuck. Lately though, I’ve just felt like shit. There is no gentler way to put it. I feel like my insides are made of rotten, composting trash and its just poisoning my entire body. Obviously I don’t enjoy feeling like that. Things needed to change.

I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to go about getting healthier. Finally I decided to try Medifast but not before I made sure I had a support team. I asked my friends Jenni and Stephanie if they’d be interested in doing this program with me. We all have different goals but I knew we’d be a great support team for each other. We are all halfway through the first week and having more success than we thought we could.

Ok, here’s where I get brave. I wasn’t going to post before photos *yet* nor was I going to break down the numbers. Because even though this is more about my health than vanity, I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t hate these numbers. But I still look cute in my before photo – even with minimal make-up. 😉 Besides, I figure if I can tell you that I once weighed almost 300lbs, I can tell you what I currently weigh.

Here we go.

Oh man….this is gonna hurt.

My goal is to lose 90-100 pounds. My starting weight was 240 pounds.

I started on Wednesday, March 2, 2011 and I have lost a total of seven pounds. Go me!

So how do I feel about my first week? It was really great. I’m not kidding. I was totally expecting it to suck a lot. I was ready to gag my way through every bite of pre-packaged food and lay on the floor passed out from low blood sugar. I totally expected to go AWOL in less than 24 hours and smother myself in Shamrock Shakes and Big Macs. But that didn’t happen. None of it did….ok, maybe I gagged on the Apple Cinnamon oatmeal a little but the rest of the food was great! And I don’t doctor it up either. I eat the food just the way it is prepared per the instructions. The shakes are my favorite so far, then the bars. The oatmeals, soups and soft serve ice cream are all really good too.

I expected to be exhausted these past few days but I have had more energy than ever. I feel like my body is being cleansed and can’t wait to get the rest of the crap out of my body. Speaking of crap, I did have a case of the ‘medifarts’ as they are called on the message boards. But I think that is common with any big change in diet. It has since resolved itself and I am back to smelling like roses.

The weekend was really hard because our weekends are not regimented at all. I had a hard time getting all of my meals in and subsequently gave myself a killer migraine on Saturday. The lesson I learned was to keep a Medifast bar in my purse as back up and find two minutes to eat it. But the real challenge was watching my husband and daughter scarf down burgers at the food court in the mall while I ate a Peanut Butter Crunch bar.

Overall my first 5 days on Medifast have been really great. I’m excited to see what my final loss is on Thursday morning after being on Medifast for a week. This is the only program I’ve ever been on in which I am not starving in-between meals or having anxiety about how to fit it into my life. I’m so glad I chose Medifast. I can’t wait to meet my goals and show you all how awesome this program is!

I know she’s growing up. I know its just the way things go. You have the tiny baby, then they are not so tiny but they are still your baby. Then they are even less tiny and they are half your height and they are dressing themselves and holding entire conversations and putting away their toys (sometimes) and caring for the pets and practically moving out of the house and OH MY GOD SOMEBODY HOLD ME!

But this is what we do. We have the babies, we grow the babies and we watch the time pour out of the hourglass and drown our hopes of keeping them babies forever. siiiiggggghhhhh.

I really have a love/hate relationship with this whole growing up thing. Its so cool to watch Izzy navigate her way through life. But when you go from this:

to this in a year in a half:

it’s bound to break your heart a little.

I would like to point out the painted nails. She actually requested that I paint her nails for her photos today. She deliberated over five painfully similar shades of pink for nearly ten minutes before choosing this shade.

My friend Steph says I am the ‘Queen of random shit on the internet’. I am always linking her to some of the coolest stuff. Some of its pretty, some of its quirky, most of it screams ‘Kelly’ (meaning its usually a little twisted). A peek into my favorites folder is essentially a peek into the filing cabinets of my brain…and coincidentally looks a lot like my basement too. Its cluttered, funny, messy, pink and glittery, maybe even a little grimy, inspiring and most of all intriguing. You never really know what is going to turn up when you start moving stuff around. So I thought I would start sharing some of that random stuff with all of you once a week. And with random stuff comes random stories.

The year of the rat

Speaking of my basement, I was down there last night looking for something and totally scared the bejeezus out of myself. We live in front of a huge field, next to some marshland. We had been lucky to never have mice in the house. (I know, ew, mice. But I bet you have one or two in your house and you just don’t know it. They are sneaky little buggers.) Well last winter we got a turn at vermin control when we had an uninvited house guest. I have been a little skeeved out and paranoid ever since. Anyway, I am down there moving things around and out of the corner of my eye, I see something move past my foot.

WHAT THE EFF WAS THAT!

I look around frantically. Nothing. DAMN IT. I immediately begin to map out a plan to firebomb the basement without destroying the rest of the house.

Ok, deep breath. Get back to work, you can’t solve this right now.

THERE IT IS AGAIN!

HOLY SHIT! ::does freaked out, pee your pants dance around boxes::

THERE IT IS AGA….

Wait a minute…. ::looks closer with fireplace shovel in hand::

It was the biggest dust bunny I have ever seen in my life. Trust me, I stepped on the bastard a little to see if it would squeak. Definitely just a dust bunny. (And what the hell would I have done had it squeaked? probably scream, run up the stairs and burn my shoes in the fire pit in the back yard. That’s what.)

This is all from someone that had a pet rat as well as other rodents at various stages in my life. Want to know why mice freak me out so bad? Oh that is another good ‘How my Mom messed me up’ story.

Once upon a time my parents thought it would be an awesome idea to move all of us to the boonies. When I say boonies, I mean it. Nothing was within walking distance. It was not uncommon to wake to the aroma of cow crap. Wild animals scavenging on the front porch at night? Every day stuff. To make matters worse they decided to build a log house in the middle of a forest. No joke. They had to cut down trees just to create an area to bring building supplies in. Can you say ‘tick-fest’?

So you might be asking where we lived during our pioneer days. That’s where the story gets really fun. Instead of waiting for the house to be finished my parents decided it was a grand idea to pull me out of school right before Christmas and move me to a new school district in the middle of my 6th grade year. (Resentful much? I sure am.) To add insult to injury they moved us into a trailer. Not a double-wide, not a modular home. A trailer. Now I’ve got no issues with trailer homes per say. I actually dig the small space and how you can cram so much into something you can hitch to the back of your car and drive away with. I’ve often fantasized about taking a road trip in one of those little silver campers. I’ve got love for trailers. But this one…it was the trailer that time forgot. My mom often bragged about what a ‘steal’ it was. Um…yeah…that’s because the current year was 1988 and I am pretty sure this trailer was circa ‘68. Oh and for a while, because we didn’t have a septic tank yet, we had a port-o-john just outside the back door. Eek.

Okay so let me paint the picture:

Old trailer.

Winter.

Middle of the woods.

Wild animals everywhere.

I often spent weekends with my Mommom because she lived among the civilized world. No wild animals, entertaining stuff within walking distance, cable (oh man, do I have a story about cable for you), working, indoor toilets. Practically heaven on Earth at that point in my life. I remember coming home after a weekend away and my mom was in her bedroom folding clothes. The bathroom was connected to her bedroom and I remember going right in to say hi and to get a hairbrush out of the top drawer of the vanity in the bathroom. Things in the bathroom were always in the same place. I was on auto pilot and didn’t even need to look in the drawer. In my mind, I can see the incident in slow motion. I reached into the drawer to retrieve the white plastic hairbrush that was always there. Instead, my fingertips brushed something fuzzy, then they were stuck to something sticky. Then I heard ‘SQUEEEEEE! SQUEEEEEE!’. I recall recoiling my hand quickly and letting out a yelp only to see that this did nothing. My hand was stuck to the trap AND the mouse.

W

T

F

!

As any rational person would do, I continued to scream as if being murdered and shaking my hand around like I was having a spasm. My mother finally came in the room at which point she commenced laughing hysterically and did not help me at all. Pretty sure she peed her pants because she was laughing so hard. I can’t really remember what happened next or who removed the glue trap from my hand. What I do remember is my mother delighting in telling this story at every opportunity for the next 20 years.

After things settled down she told me we had a little mouse problem and let me know where all the traps were in the house. Sadly for our long-haired Maine Coon cat, he did not get the memo. A few nights later we are watching TV in the living room and from the kitchen we hear ‘clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp……clomp!’. We rushed into the kitchen to find the cat emerging from a floor cabinet with a glue trap on each foot and one on his long, fluffy tail. No ‘prize’ attached to the traps either. Poor Kitty.

I suppose this is where I make a confession. I have a lot of blogs in my reader. I go through my reader and catch up as time allows. But there are probably fewer than a dozen that I seek out regularly to see if there are new posts. I happened upon Empty Nest when looking for blog hops to participate in. Well I mistakenly participated in a 40 year + hop. Oops! Sorry for crashing your party. But I am glad I did. I have really enjoyed Momaloft’s tales about her life, motherhood and family. Its really interesting to read the stories of a mom who’s babies have left the nest. I’d like to say its a long way away or us…but it will be here before we know it. Momaloft’s stories are touching, well told and best of all, humorous. So glad I found you!

I think my friend Kiely sent this to me. I can’t eat 99.99999% of the stuff on this site since I am doing Medifast. But no one said I couldn’t look! And the photos are really pretty. mmmmmmm food porn.

How cool is this!?! I might have to take a crack at this. Such a cool concept.

4. TiMERC and I watch a lot of movies on Netflix Instant Play. He chose this one a few weeks ago and we thought it was super cute. It had a rough start because the main character – she is hard to like. But she grows on you. And if you ever want to know what its like to hang out with me, the sister in the movie is it. Well, except for the size 0 jeans and the slutty behavior. Otherwise, that’s pretty much me in a movie.

Link up your blog, your twitter, etsy, your Nana’s myspace – whatever you want! You can link anything you want as long as it is SFW (ie: no porn or icky stuff!). The only rule is to tag your link appropriately: